Whether or not Europe was right to colonize and dominate the world, the past has affected the present as it always does. However, the criticism of the present upon the past directs the future, learning and digressing from previous experiences. Europe birthed the modern world: industry and nation states now permeate the world from European origins. All non-European (and even some European nations: Spain and Eastern Europe) are the children of the colonial era, even if only intellectually (Japan, Thailand). Who now is the bread winner that inherits the power endowed by the old, retired grandparents of Europe?
By necessity the new power will have once been a colony of Europe. In that sense, Europe will live on just as Rome has lived on through Europe. As the maps above and below illustrate, nearly every habitable portion of land, the world around, has been controlled by Europeans within the last five hundred years.
With the trauma of the twentieth century, those nations destroyed each other through successive wars - while planting industrialism and the keys to power abroad. Who will be the new leaders?
Consider America, proclaimed owner and victor of the last century, the "American Century." Can she continue to "police" the world considering her shrinking industry, weakened economy, and divided self-interest? Perhaps - she has done so for nearly seventy years already, but with self-criticism. America has forgotten why she came to power, why others fell.
This nation, though powerful, has several drawbacks.
1.) America is a young nation by the estimate of dates of independence, her immediate geographical neighborhood even younger. Europe was nearly three times America's age by the time it arose to conquer the new world.
2.) Along with her youth, America has been historically isolationist most of her history. In fact a good portion of her population still wishes to be self-focused, isolationist, and let the world run itself. Ron Paul, a candidate of the 2012 presidency, had strong isolationist ideals in his campaign and garnered a moderate support. The world wars woke America, but she has not completely abandoned the internal, domestic idealism that characterized her before 1917.
3.) In conjunction with this isolationism, America is too self-centered to be the big kid on the block. All of her issues are focused on economic might or anti-communism/anti-terrorism agendas. At least the Europeans began industrializing their colonies. The mistakes made in Europe were also made in their colonies, but no precedent existed to caution. The US makes the same mistakes which have already been shown to be dysfunctional to the distribution of power
In answer to America's weaknesses, what nation is respectably old and stable? What nation has learned from the brutal, oppressive domination of European control? What nation is strong, if inexperienced, on the world stage? What nation remembers its past?
China is one of the oldest, most geographically stable countries in the world. She was abused by Europeans ransacking trades along her ports, and the Opium Wars destroyed her self-respect. As Western ideologies infiltrated her masses, China split between capitalism and communism. With Taiwan remaining just off her coast, China is still divided between those economic ideologies. However, she has weighed both options and seems to have found a fully functioning middle ground as evidenced by her expanding economy the last thirty years. China is excellent at remembering its history. Ancestor worship strengthens the patterns of the past, and China will likely avoid the selfish individualism rampant in the West. As an economically and military powerful and up-and-coming nation, one of China's biggest flaws is her inexperience on the world stage. "Cathay," an old English term for China, intentionally isolated herself from much of the world the past millenia. In order to dominate the vacancies on stage, she will have to accept a mantle of unprecedented world influence.
Who then should lead the world? The West is falling. America's monopolar decadence is disintegrating as China has successfully siphoned Asian and African influences to create an increasingly bipolar world. Could the West and East work together, united, as nations seeking a common goal? Will the East try to reassert its ancient strength, so long absent the past five hundred years? Will the West completely collapse a midst an incomprehensibly large pile of debt and military-economic oppression?
The study of history reveals many things, but only the future can pull the curtain back.
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Agatha Tyche
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